Gray wolf OR-143 was caught on video a few days before it was hit by a car and killed along Highway 138 near Lemolo Lake. Wildlife officials said it had lost its wariness toward humans. 

Federal wildlife personnel on June 24 went looking near Crater Lake National Park for a second wolf reported to have lost its wariness of humans, according to the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

The personnel, including a biologist, used electronic signals transmitted from a collar on the wolf to try to find the canine but didn’t see it before it left the area, according to Meghan Dugan, a spokeswoman for ODFW. The area was near a highway and camping area west of the lake.

The wolf, OR-125, had been hanging out with OR-143, which had lost its wariness of humans before it was struck and killed by a pickup truck June 13 north of the park.

Dugan, responding to social media posts and media inquiries about the post, said that campers on June 24 reported seeing a collared wolf that turned out to be OR-125.

They said the wolf was not wary of them. Later that day, employees with USDA Wildlife Services and a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service arrived and were able to locate the wolf via radio signal.

“They were able to get fairly close to the collared wolf; however, dense vegetation prevented them from seeing the wolf,” Dugan wrote in an email. “The wolf kept its distance from them and eventually left the area without any hazing being conducted.”

Both wolves wear telemetry tracking collars that transmit signals detected by receivers and antenna used by biologists. The signals are stronger and louder the nearer that trackers get to the animal.

Dugan’s statement came in response to a photo and commentary posted June 24 to a Facebook page of the Prospect Community Friends & Neighbors. The photo showed a wolf that the agency confirmed to be OR-125.

“Off Highway 230 around mile marker 10-11. Stay safe out there,” the post stated, referring to the accompanying photo of OR-125. “He was crossing the road towards a dry camping site people were camped at. He wasn’t afraid, my husband got within 20 yards. Has a yellow tracking collar. ODFW is being notified.”

The highway at that location is about 3 miles outside the park’s western boundary and about 12 miles northwest of the lake itself. Mile marker 10-11 is near Muir Creek.

Sam Dodenhoff, a biologist with ODFW, said the photo shows OR-125, a 2-year-old “dispersed” male that had been part of the Indigo Pack and had been “kind of bouncing around” the western Crater Lake area. The pack’s territory is north of Crater Lake.

The sighting of OR-125 came 11 days after the death of OR-143, a yearling and former member of the Indigo Pack that was struck June 13 on Highway 138 near Birds Point Road, about 20 miles north of the lake.

In the days and weeks before its death, OR-143 had “lost its wariness of people” and did not react to traffic, vehicle noises and human voices, according to an ODFW advisory. The lack of wariness was likely from being fed by people and having minimal negative interactions with people, Dugan said at the time.

In a related matter, Dugan said she’s seen a video posted to social media that shows OR-143 in the days before its death, as it trotted along a rural road and within a few feet of a vehicle containing the person taking the video. The wolf, recognizable by the collar it wore, had been trapped May 18 and outfitted with the radio collar.

The Rogue Valley Times was able to reach the person who took the video, Courtney Raeann Perez of Redmond, who said in a phone interview that she encountered the wolf about 7:30 a.m. on June 4 on the road to Lemolo Lake, where she was headed for a hike.

“I’m a hiker,” she said. “I like to get out.”

Perez said she was driving along, her car windows down, letting in the “cool country air” when she spotted the wolf as it came toward her, loping along near the road’s right shoulder.

“Is that a dog?” she remembers thinking, and stopped her car. “I don’t know what this is, but I’m going to record it.”

The video, narrated by an astonished Perez using colorful language, recorded the wolf trotting along and passing within a few feet of the passenger side of her vehicle, as her dachshund, Arlo, stared out the passenger side front window.

The wolf glanced their way and kept going, as she quickly closed the window.

“It was so calm,” Perez said. “It didn’t have any reaction.”

“He kind of stopped toward the back of my car and kind of turned” before continuing on, she said.

During her hike, she kept alert for any wolves.

Perez said she is Native American and considered the encounter a good omen.

“I have a very close bond with animals,” she said.

The experience was emotional for her. “A spiritual thing,” she said.

“My hike was blessed by nature. It felt like a magical experience.”

To see the video of OR-143 shot by Courtney Raeann Perez, find this story at rv-times.com